Being anything but born rich in this world is troublesome and it shouldn't be. Let's start at the top!
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Some real grumps in this thread…
I’m very lucky, I had a few special teachers in school who just let me be me and that really helped. I also had teachers who wanted to fit me through the square hole in life and that sucked. I’m not that shape, never have been, and never could be.
Now that we know so more I hope the kids these days get the space and environment they need to thrive. Building a healthy society takes all shapes of people working together.
Would have been cool if I ever had a teacher who gave me a break
Turns out they were wrong, the majority of things in life are in fact optional
Personally as much as the teachers didn't help it'd have been better if the classmates were more accepting. Mean you hoped the teachers would be nice but classmates were the issue usually. Cause who were you friends with besides classmates, the teacher? Or just books? Mean had a couple friends but very few so was mostly books for me.
I can look back now and see a few teachers were nice and tried to push me towards a different attitude but I honestly could not understand it at the time and I could probably never mask myself well enough to fit in. I had a very different perspective on the situation and nowadays I don't really think too harshly on classmates that acted like regular kids. Mean unless they repeatedly harassed me but that's a other issue. This was the early 90s mostly so long time ago, I've figured out things better but it took some time for sure.
or the world is traumatic and the neurotypicals somehow manage to ignore it
It's much less traumatic when you actually can do something and are punished for not doing it, than outright being punished for your biology. Very sick.
You know that story about monkeys with a ladder, where they always beat up any monkey that tries to climb it, without even knowing why? Feels like society as a whole is that and neurodivergents are the monkeys that try to climb
I think it's also that we only define someone as neurodivergent if they've been traumatized otherwise you're just a spicy normal person.
"Neurodivergence" and mental disorders are inherently only defined when they make it difficult to be in society.
No offense but this is a very self-centered and immature viewpoint. Trauma is a fact of human existence. Just because the world is designed for neurotypicals doesn't mean the world isn't still traumatic for them. Case in point: trauma for physical assault, sexual abuse, loss of a loved one, severe injury, cancer, losing a job (and the avalanche that can start).
None of us know what goes on behind closed doors.
It's traumatic for both but it's possibly moreso the case for neurodivergent people. They face all of the things you mentioned and more things that neurotypical people dont.
What you're saying seems obvious but I don't think it's as simple as that. However, @stepan@lemmy.cafe said "somehow manage to ignore it". I don't think anyone ignores trauma in the way this implies. Unaddressed trauma is a ticking time bomb, period.
Trauma comes in all shapes and sizes. When you get into the weeds, the word actually becomes useless on its own. What becomes important is the type, source, and severity of the trauma. When comparing one group to another, circumstances play just as large of a role. For example:
Neurodivergents are much less likely to have romantic relationships, and the odds are even worse of them having children. Thus, they experience trauma related to rejection, loneliness, shame and unfulfilled evolutionary drives (among other things) at a much higher rate than neurotypicals. However, they experience the trauma of miscarriage, abortion, loss of a child, divorce, death of a spouse, and spousal abuse at a much lower rate than neurotypicals.
Are there a whole slew of things unique to neurodivergents that are compounded by societal or cultural incompatibilities (bullying, social rejection, invalidation, etc.) that neurotypicals will likely never understand? Absolutely. Do neurodivergents have much higher rates of suicide in adulthood than neurotypicals? Yes. Do these have anything to do with whether or not neurotypicals are seemingly better at getting-by because they ignore their trauma? No. They're better at getting-by because the world is built for them. But that doesn't mean they don't live in a prison of their own.
I didn't say neurotypicals are better at getting by because they ignore their trauma or that they live in a utopia, I said the world is generally less traumatic for neurotypical people.
I think the whole conversation is muddied because we tend to only identify neurodivergent people after they have been traumatized, not always but people tend to only seek help and diagnosis after they have had major troubles. Literally part of the DSM criteria for diagnosis is that the neurodivergence has to give the person issues when they try to function in society.
It's a catch-22 when you say the world is built for neurotypical people because neurodivergence is partially defined as someone for whom the world isn't built for.
Yeah there's a bit of a selection bias going there as you pointed out (not sure if that's the exactly accurate term).
... any takers for nerodivergent Zion?
Candidate areas include:
Okunoshima Island
Has rabbits, and old nuclear weapons production plants.
Fort Carroll Island
Artificial island built as a military fort, abadoned, sold off to private developer, abandoned again.
Clipperton Island
Potable water, abandonded guano mine, also probably/basically cursed due to a famine leading to starvation leading to a guy declaring himself king leading to everyone else killing him, during the Mexican Revolution.
Bonus:
We attempt to defeat the Libertarians and just all move to New Hampshire.
I mean hey as long as it's not snake island, doll island, or sentinel island, these are some real contenders!
Although I'm concerned that "potable water" is only listed as an asset for one of them, and that one's the "basically cursed" one 😂.
But the cursed one sounds like the most interesting one xD
Nobody said attempting to establish or reestablish civilization on an actually uninhabited island would be easy.
And those were the ones I could find that are not like... well, most other unihabited islands are either very, very far from the nearest civilization, or are set aside protected nature resverves, or both.
Devons Island, for example, is literally used as a nearest terrestrial equivalent to Mars, for NASA and other space agencies to do experiments.
There are other islands that could potentially be considerable, but ... they're usually very remote, and while they do have some population, its basically all scientific researchers or equipment operators.
Its gonna be pretty hard to find anywhere to settle that would not involve colonialism, or utterly extreme distances from nearest logistics points and/or essentially impossible weather/climate conditions.
... Other than again potentially New Hampshire.
Hmm, I like this idea. But no one to take care of my family or project.
Sykos Island has cats
and we could volutneer to take care of the cats
That does seem like an extremely fitting idea.
Oh, what are all the weirdos up to now?
... herding cats, evidently.
https://unearththevoyage.com/greece-syros-cats-volunteer-island-stay-cycladic-culture/
So apparently its Syros, not Sykos, and you basically get dormed for free in somebody else's house, and tend to the kitties for 5 hours a day.
Honestly, not a terrible vacation idea, but if you just had a bunch of NDs move there and then stay and then try to build their own society by morphing the existing one... well... that's kind of a settler-colonialism.
Or, maybe, we all learn Greek and integrate?
i had not finished my coffee, i will learn to spell before i have finished my coffee in another life.
but honestly i'm kind of thinking about emigrating to syros i love greek food and culture.
sykos probably because that is where my brain is.
Well you're probably going to have to learn at least a bit of Greek if we want to stay there very long =P
i can order food and find the bathroom in 27 languages and greek is one of them. (pointing and actively, noisily shitting gets the point across very well)
I'd rather avoid any island where we'd have to resort to eating cats, since they'll destroy the wildlife there
i'm confused why are we eating the cats they are cuddly
To gain their powers
have you tried just laying down
Oh wow this is way better
Now the cats come to you and you can just eat them
I'm gonna be just like one of those hungry hungry hippos.
I'm in! I vote for!
Being in this world is traumatic. We must do something about it soon, or there won't be any "being in this world" anymore...
James Kanenaugh poem:
There are people too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with corporate eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are people too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There are people too gentle to live among wolves
Who mark them for burial with greedy claws
And sacrifice them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are people too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There are people too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with appetite and search
For others to prey upon and drain their childhood dry.
There are people too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There are people too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them aside like a wounded dove.
Such gentle souls are lonely in a merchant’s world
Unless they have another gentle soul to love.
Kanenaugh
Kavanaugh?
Oops — yeah, Kavanaugh
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
That's why Rhiana wrote that song w Calvin Harris, about finding love in a hopeless place...
... cut to her yacht pulling up to Little St. James being like "hopeless? Hold my umbrella drink."
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